HarperCollins offers digital book content for iPhone

Publisher HarperCollins said on Wednesday it would make samples from 14 new book titles available for Apple Inc's Web-browsing iPhone in a new effort to extend publishing into digital formats.

Most of the new books will debut in August and September, with the iPhone-compatible versions available at HarperCollins mobile Web site.

Books available for sampling on the iPhone include The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman, Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury and Obama by David Mendell.

HarperCollins' Browse Inside applications allows readers to sample pages of its books on the Web. The company began to build up its digital warehouse of published material in 2006 with digital technology firm LibreDigital and now has 10,000 titles available.

iPhone subscribers will be able to view the first 10 pages of chapters one and two of the select group of new books in what HarperCollins described as a pilot program.

After sampling the stories, customers can choose to buy or pre-order the book from retailers through the mobile application.

HarperCollins is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg, with additional reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore)